fall in love with the tippling. Everyonehere is orbiting a knowing. My beard has,for years, been seed-size. Keep going,

says the wind... All night I stir mare soup:I, standing in my best breeches alone.

lady butter

BY TAISIA KITAISKAIA

Her hand a countrywhere women are foolsin harrowing bonnets,only dreams can pursue them.

Winter bullied her, forceda finger in her, made her

his wife, so that nobodycould touch her. When crowned,she magnified her wand

into a mirror, caught what wind& wired it shut. Her natureballooned in a cave of iniquity,

so beautifulwindows closed at her arrival& true became truestjust by looking at her.

Her her a burr, the burr of her.

The waiting & bleedingtrembled her over, the monsterof her & her might—OriginUnknown.

A man with no business wearing a hatgot lost in the woods, & took her:

Her names were Luxury, Glory,Little Worm. She carved a carriage& suffocated in sated sleep.

What a dull, what a little dull, whata dull little being she was.It is not up to us, who lives in the window.Her mongrel’s puddled drool a portal

to nowhere. Afraid to move, afraidof her body with its bells & chambers, echoing.

Taisia Kitaiskaia is the author of LITERARY WITCHES, illustrated by Katy Horan and forthcoming from Seal Press in Fall 2017. A recipient of a Michener Center for Writers fellowship, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as Crazyhorse, Pleiades, jubilat, Guernica, Gulf Coast, and Fence. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her manuscript, "Hello My Unspeakable Name," was a finalist for the 2015 Cleveland State University First Book Prize.